Day 14 – Pacific Crest Trail (26 miles)

After the unplanned zero in Big Bear yesterday, I was particularly keen to get on trail this morning. Itchy feet, I suppose.

I cleaned the house a little, packed my bag, said goodbyes and took the rubbish on my way out. I set off about 8am. I needed to hitch to the trail head about 11 miles away. However, I was on the far side of town to the exit I needed, so I begin to walk along the main road, sticking my hand out when a bunch of cars would drive by. I ended up walking about 3 miles before I got a lift. The guy who picked me up owned the local real estate company and often picked up hikers. There was a German hiker in the car as well.

When I got to the trail head, a guy I stayed with, who left an hour after me, was already there.

We got out of the car and thanked our driver. The German was hiking a section of the trail and this was her first day. We set off togethrr and talked for a couple of miles.

I still felt the need to get going after my unplanned zero, so said goodbye and started walking my normal pace.

Walking through fur trees foe the morning, I came up on to the ridge and had a great view of Big Bear and the huge lake (for the desert) that is its main attraction.

From then on the day dragged on. I spent a few hours walking through an old burnt section. This took away all the high alpine trees, and left many of them on the trail to jump over, under or around.
The day before I resupplied almost all of my 4 day resupply out of a hiker box (where other hikers put excess food or other hiking related supplies for others to use). Most of it was from ine person. They warned me that they ditched the food because it was unappealing and hard to eat. But back to the day at hand.

The day turned into one of those that drag on. I just never got into the groove. Towards the end of the day I realised that I hardly eat, and the warning was entirely correct. I sat down and forced myself to eat 2 pretty awful protein bars and several handfuls of raw almonds (surprisingly hard to eat a lot of). I began to feel my energy come back and made the last few miles into camp.